Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer worldwide. The American Cancer Society's estimates for breast cancer in the United States for 2013 are: about 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women, and about 39,620 women will die from breast cancer.
The scientific and technical advances in breast cancer treatment have entailed a large cost. The treatment of breast cancer consumes a large part of the healthcare budget: (2005) 15-20% of all cancer costs and 1% of the total healthcare budget (Lamerato et al., 2006). The economic burden for the year 2001 was $15-20 billion (Campbell and Ramsey, 2009). The lifetime per patient costs of breast cancer range from $20,000 to $100,000.
Efforts to develop effective prevention and treatment of this disease have fallen short. For example, current treatments employ toxic agents that cannot be targeted to the affected cells. Additionally, the efficacy of pharmaceuticals and herbal extracts/components is limited by bioavailability. Treatments that can surmount these shortcomings are thus of high priority.